The Big Lie
by StarsHollow4ever
Summary: Rory has just turned down Logan's marriage proposal because she realized she couldn't commit to him because she's still in love with Jess and then she makes a trip to Philly to see him before she starts her work on the Obama campaign.
1. Chapter 1

**** The Big Lie ****

**Genre**: Romance, Drama  
**Pairings**: Rory/Jess  
**Rating**: K+1  
**Disclaimer**: _Rory and Jess and all other recognizable "Gilmore Girls" characters belong to Amy Sherman-Palladino, Dorothy Parker Drank Here Productions, and the WB. There is no profit from the copyrighted characters or infringement intended._

**CHAPTER ONE**

When Logan asked her to marry him, she'd turned him down because she said she didn't want to miss out on life's opportunities. She realized, even as she'd spoken the lie to Logan that the reason she couldn't say yes to his marriage proposal was because she would never love any man the way she loved Jess. The very next morning she was on a train to Philadelphia to see Jess and to let him know her relationship with Logan was over.

"Rory, what a surprise! Does Preppie Boy know you're here?"

"Nope, the prepster and I are no longer an item."

"Too bad. Come on in. I'm making lunch and you're welcome to join me."

"Great! What are we having?"

"Philly Cheese steak."

"I always wanted to try one of those."

"Okay, now that we've gotten the small talk, what are you doing here?""Jess asked bluntly.

"Logan asked me to marry him, but I couldn't tell him yes."

"I'd say that was good judgment on your part. Your grandmother must have had a cow that you turned down a proposal from Mr. Richie Rich. Why couldn't you tell him yes?"

"Well I have this opportunity to work on the Obama campaign and he wanted me to turn that down to go to California with him right away, but also, I couldn't tell him yes because when he proposed because I realized it'd be a mistake to marry him because I'm still in love with you," she confessed as she leaned in to kiss him.

"That's interesting. I tried to reconnect with you while you were still with him and you said you couldn't leave him. How do I know you're not going to play me the same way you did him and Dean?"

"I guess that's a fair question. The only way I can prove that I won't is to let you name your condition for us to get back together. You name it, whatever it is, and I'll do it."

"Okay, I won't ask you to do anything as selfish as Logan, by asking you to give up the Obama campaign, but I do have something in mind."

"You name it Jess, I'll do it."

Jess walked out of the room and came back and threw a pad of paper and a pencil on the kitchen table.

"What's this?" Rory asked as she licked some cheese sauce off her pinky that had dripped from her Philly cheese steak.

"_This_ is a pencil and _this_ is a pad of paper," he answered sarcastically as he held them up.

"I can _see_ that, Jess. What do you want me to do with it?"

"Listen, I think you've got some unresolved issues that I want you to work through before we can think about getting back together," he explained.

"So?"

"So! For the next year, while you're out on the road with the Obama campaign, I want you to take some time to write down all your thoughts about all your relationships. Since you're a journalist, this assignment shouldn't be too hard. Start with Dean, then me, Richie Rich and anybody else I might not know about and describe how you met us, why you fell in love with us and why it didn't work out. Keep in mind, I'll know if you're holding out on me. I already know what happened between us and pretty much what happened between you and Frankenstein, so keep it real or this deal's off."

"You want me to write you a dating resume, Jess? I am going to be extremely busy for the next year. I don't see how I'll have the time to –"

"I'm not asking for a full on novel, Rory. Just find the time to work on it when you can and then come back and see me after the election and we'll discuss the results."

"Jess, I can't believe you're asking me to do something crazy like this. Why are you asking me to do this? I turned down a marriage proposal on account of you. Doesn't that mean anything to you?"

"You've already agreed to meet my condition, so just do it."

Rory was fuming on the inside. She thought Jess' request was pointless and an invasion of her privacy, but she desperately wanted to get back together with him so she decided not to push the matter with him any further.


	2. Chapter 2

**CHAPTER TWO**

On the train ride home to Hartford, Rory found herself getting bored and reached into her knapsack and pulled out the pad and pencil Jess had given her. As she stared at the blank page, she made a chart with the categories Jess had requested.

_Might as well get this out of the way before I leave, _she thought, realizing she was indeed going to be very busy at her job on the campaign trail.

**Who**: Dean Forester  
**How We Met**: Bumped into each other on my last day of Stars Hollow High School.  
**Why I Fell In Love With Him:**

She looked at the space under this category and was overtaken with writer's block. This assignment was not going to be as easy as she thought. She put the pad and pencil back in her knapsack, telling herself she'd get to it later.

Eleven months had passed since she'd met with Jess and she still had not gotten past the "How We Met" category for Dean. She looked at the calendar and frowned, it wasn't like to be a procrastinator, so she resolved to accomplish this task as quickly as she could. Luckily, she had a rare day off so she ordered room service and resigned herself to stay in her hotel room until she'd completed the compendium of Rory Gilmore's romantic relationships.

By eight o'clock that night, she'd finished her list and fell asleep over the piles of pages. When she awoke the next morning, she read back over her entries and was astonished to see what she'd written the day before.

_**Who**__: _Dean Forester_  
__**How We Met**__: _Bumped into each other on my last day of Stars Hollow High School._  
__**Why I Fell in Love With Him**__: _He was extremely handsome and the first guy who'd ever dared to be my boyfriend. Before I met Dean, I never knew for sure if I'd even have a boyfriend. I was always the bookish girl at Stars Hollow High School. My time there was spent completely focused on getting out of there and into Chilton, so I studied hard and spent my free time buried in my novels, thus creating a shield of inapproachability around myself. Dean would watch me sitting under the tree at lunch time reading my books and actually admired my dedication to my favorite pastime, so the shield of inapproachability meant nothing to him. Looking back, I can certainly say I'd like to kick myself with a good dose of guilt for not appreciating at the time all the wonderful things he did for me and the special way he treated me. I'd have to say I was very blessed to have Dean Forester for a first boyfriend, no one could have asked for a better one.  
_**Why it Didn't Work Out**_: So many reasons. I honestly feel bad that it didn't last, but when I met Jess, I had to reluctantly admit to myself that Dean and I just weren't meant to be. He absolutely treated me like gold, but in the end I realized we weren't very well matched intellectually. I hate to say that, because it seems snobbish and cold, but I knew myself well enough to know that I'd eventually start taking out our differences on Dean and he was too good a guy to have anyone treat him like that. My fondest hope is that he meets someone who can embrace his goodness and reciprocate that goodness to the highest level.

_**Who**_: Jess Mariano  
_**How We Met**_: At a dinner party my mom held at our house to welcome Jess to Stars Hollow.  
_**Why I Fell in Love**_: At first it wasn't so much love as it was pity. He was no longer welcome at his mother's house in Brooklyn and Luke had offered to take him in. As far as I could tell, there wasn't a lot of love between him and Luke. Luke just offered him the basics of food and shelter and other than that, he pretty much seemed on his own. The town despised him, my mother despised him and so did Dean. I truly felt sorry for him and thought he needed at least one friend in the world. As Jess and I got to know each other, a friendship wasn't enough for him and he kept persisting hard enough to convince me of that, too. Jess so much funnier than Dean, a great music aficionado and shared my passion for intelligent literature so we were bound to be together eventually. Looking back, I realize I also admired how persistent Jess was to prove he loved me. He never let set backs stop him. Dean wasn't as confident as Jess was, the minute things looked like they weren't flowing his way, he'd sulk and bail out.  
_**Why it Didn't Work Out**_: Pretty much for reasons out of our control. Jess was having a lot of personal problems in his life and ran to California. It broke my heart almost beyond repair when he left. I wanted him to take me to my prom and cheer me on at my graduation, but luckily I was on the verge of starting Yale and another chapter in my life so that helped the healing process considerably. By the time our paths crossed again, I was with Logan and I'd felt so guilty for dumping Dean to be with Jess, I couldn't consider committing the same sin twice.

_**Who**_: Logan Huntzberger  
_**How We Met**_: Marty introduced us at Yale (my first impressions of him was that he was royal jerk)  
_**Why I Fell in Love**_**: **This relationship was totally unexpected. Logan never made it a secret about wanting to play the field. I tried it for a while and then I realized I wasn't being true to who I was, but when I told him I just wanted to be friends, he insisted on being my boyfriend. I was amazed I was able to do what no other girl in history had done, get Logan Huntzberger to agree to be in a committed relationship. We had many, many ups and downs. There was the cheating, the accident, his parent's arrogance, but boy he was handsome and sophisticated and he was the first man to make to me feel like a fully fledged woman and we had so much in common with our careers and the social circles his family and my grandparents ran in. **  
**_**Why it Didn't Work Out**_**: **This one certainly looked like it was going to be the one that worked out. His proposal at the graduation party at my grandparents' house was almost like the ending to a perfect, happily ever after, Hollywood movie. Everyone in the room, except my mother, was excited when he popped the question, but I felt cornered and I told Logan I needed some time to think about my answer. He asked me again on the day of the graduation and I stalled again and told him I needed a little more time to explore my career opportunities and suggested we try to maintain a long distance relationship. He said it was all or nothing and I secretly breathed a sign of relief, knowing in my heart that as much as Logan and I had shared at Yale, that he was not the man I wanted to share forever with and also realizing the right man for me had been Jess all along.

She stared at the pages again and realized it lacked a much needed summary, so she quickly added the following:

_**The Reason Jess is the Best Man for Me:  
**_I truly believe Jess is the best man for me is because he was always willing to give me a second chance. Dean and Logan, despite all their good qualities, were never as persistent as Jess was in pursuing a relationship with me, even when the odds for him didn't look good. He was even patient enough to give me a year to think things over to give me the time to determine if getting back together with him was the right thing for me to do – something I know Dean or Logan would never do.

At last, she felt satisfied that she'd written all that needed to be written on this topic and couldn't wait 'til she saw Jess again.

A month later, she showed up at Jess' apartment, all smiles, with the written copy of her dating resume.

"Hey, baby!" he greeted warmly as he met her at the door.

As he read through the resume, he would stop occasionally and look up at Rory and make her wonder what was going through his mind.

After he finished reading what she'd written, he wrapped his arms around her and gave her a passionate kiss before he spoke. Rory almost fainted; it felt so right being in Jess' arms again.

"Rory, baby, I'm so glad you were willing to do this for me – I know it must have been difficult to write this, but I just needed to know that you knew in your heart that I've always loved you unconditionally. I needed to be sure and I needed _you_ to be sure that you weren't just coming back to me on the rebound after you broke it off with Logan because I couldn't bear to let myself fall for you all over again, only for it no to work out in the end. I know made a lot of screw-ups in the past and I hope you'll give me a chance now to make it up to you. My life was a mess when I met you, but I started turning the corner a few years ago and now I can give me you more than Dean and Logan combined. Come here, I have something to show you."

Rory followed him into the living room where he produced a copy of a check written to him by a publishing company in the amount of $50,000.

"It's an advance for my latest book called _Love in the Hollow_."

"_Love in the Hollow?"_

"I wrote a story about my first love. You were that first love and my only love and it doesn't feel right not to share this success with you since you were the inspiration for my novel. Rory, will you be my wife?"

"Yes, Jess! A million times, yes!" she answered.

Jess held her tight, rejoicing that his persistence all those years ago, when he had first met Rory in Stars Hollow, had earned him the chance to be with her forever and that she'd finally realized how much her kindness had meant to him when he didn't have a friend in the world.


End file.
